Los Angeles is among the most densely populated cities in the United States, and its layout is compounding property losses. The city and surrounding towns also have some of the most expensive real estate in the country.
In Pacific Palisades, the median sale price for a home was $3.3 million in December, according to Redfin. The neighborhood is dotted with homes that belong to celebrities including Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston and Bradley Cooper.
On Tuesday, Spencer Pratt, a reality television star known for his appearance on “The Hills,” posted video on TikTok of flames approaching the back of the Pacific Palisades property that he shared with his wife and fellow reality star, Heidi Montag. TMZ later reported that the couple’s home was completely consumed.
In Altadena, site of the Eaton fire, the median home price in December was $1.3 million, according to Rocket Homes; in Sylmar, site of the Hurst fire, it was $760,000 in December, according to Redfin. Altadena, where the fire had doubled in size in just a handful of hours, is home to more than 40,000 residents. In Sylmar, the population is around 80,000.
David Barrett, a fire commander and executive director of My Safe LA, a nonprofit focused on fire safety education, said it was too early to make predictions about how much real estate had been destroyed.
“The fire fight is still ongoing,” he said. “Anything anyone says about the number of homes lost is really premature.”
But, he said, the toll would likely be higher than that of the Bel Air Fire, a 1961 disaster that destroyed 484 homes.
